1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a blood component detection unit and a blood component sampling equipment, especially an easy-to-operate and portable blood component detection unit.
2. Description of Related Art
Recently, the number of patients suffering from chronic disease rises continuously. Take diabetes for example, people with diabetes need to check their health condition regularly (for example: blood detection of blood sample from the patients once in every 8 hours). The blood detection refers to the concentration of a specific chemical composition in the blood of the patients. To the diabetic patients described above, the blood glucose concentration needs to be examined. Therefore, for diabetic patients, the blood glucose concentration needs to be examined every 8 hours.
Since the detection of blood glucose concentration is extremely important to diabetic patients, and it is necessary to be executed every 8 hours everyday, the execution or the steps should be as simple as possible so that each of diabetic patients can detect and track their own health condition easily and simply. More importantly, the methods known in the art of obtaining the blood sample is through drawing blood, which increases the pain of patients and causes the patients to purposefully avoid the examination of blood glucose concentration.
In addition, in order to maintain the accuracy of the blood glucose concentration detection, certain amount of blood is usually be drawn during the process of blood drawing, therefore, the lancet is usually used in the process of blood drawing to quickly collect certain amount of blood. However, the aggravation of the pain of patients further decreases the patients' will to execute the detection of blood glucose concentration. Especially for elderly patients, the exclusion of detecting blood glucose concentration of elderly patients will be affected because of the pain.
As a result, detecting and monitoring blood glucose concentration of diabetic patients will not be taken effectively, and the health condition of diabetic patients could not be effectively controlled.
Therefore, for diabetic patients, it is great news to develop an easy-to-operate, and portable blood component detection unit, which improves the pain caused by obtaining the blood sample.
The object of the present invention is to provide a blood component detection unit, which is portable, easy-to-operate, and easy to further improve the pain control during blood sampling.
In order to achieve the purpose described above, the present invention provides a blood component detection unit, comprising: a capsule body having a first surface; a needle array including a plurality of needles, each of the needles having an opening and an inner hollow space, and each of the needles protrudes out of the first surface; a detection chamber disposed inside the capsule body and connecting with the inner hollow space; a sensing chip disposed inside the capsule body; and a plurality of sensing elements disposed on the sensing chip.
The shape of the above described blood component detection unit is not limited herein, however, in the blood component detection unit of the present invention, the tablet shape of the blood component detection unit is preferable. Further, the blood component detection unit is preferred to be disposable.
In addition, the material of the above-described needles is not particularly limited to a particular material type; however, the needle made of biocompatible materials for the blood component detection unit of the present invention is preferable. Furthermore, the material of the above-described capsule body is not limited, however, the capsule body made of biodegradable materials is preferable.
In addition, the needles coated with anesthetic are preferable, so that the patients will not feel pain when the needles pierce through the skin of patients because of the coating of anesthetic on the needles. It is noteworthy that the needles described above are prefer to be manufactured by imprinting process, LIGA process, and electroplating process or a combination of above and another noteworthy thing is that the mold used in the above-described imprinting process is preferably manufactured by Lithographic Galvanoformung Abformung Electroforming Micro Molding (LIGA) process.
The present invention also provides a blood component detection device, comprising: a strip having an upper surface; and a plurality of blood component detection units as described above, wherein the plurality of blood component detection units disposed on the upper surface, wherein the plurality of blood component detection units is pasted on the first surface, and a distance between two adjacent blood component detection units is the same.
The present invention further provides a blood component sampling equipment, comprising: a housing having an opening; a blood component detection equipment as described above, which is disposed in the housing; an elastic element, which is disposed in the housing; and at least one roller element transporting the blood component detection unit.
The form of the elastic element is not limited thereby; any elastic element is useable for the blood component sampling equipment of the present invention. However, for the blood component sampling equipment of the present invention, the elastic element is preferred to be a spring. In addition, the blood component sampling equipment further comprises a cap covering one end of the opening of the housing.
The present invention also provides another blood component sampling equipment, comprising: a housing; a cap disposed on the housing; a turntable component, which is disposed inside the housing and has a central hole, wherein the turntable component rotates around the central hole as the axis; a depth controlling component having a plurality of sub-sections, wherein each of the sub-sections has different height; a plurality of blood component detention assemblies, each of the blood component detection assemblies comprises a needle section and a supporting section; and a driving unit comprising a fixed part and a movable part, wherein fixed part has a pushing part; wherein the needle part is disposed on the pushing part.
The present invention further provides another blood component sampling equipment, comprising: a housing; a cap disposed on the housing; a turntable component disposed inside the housing and having a central hole, wherein the turntable component rotates around the central hole as the axis; a plurality of blood component detention assemblies, each of the blood component detection assemblies comprises a needle section and a supporting section; and a driving unit comprising a fixed part and a moveable part, wherein the fixed part is wound with a coil, and the moveable part is configured with a permanent magnet.
For the blood component sampling equipment of the present invention, the turntable component rotates in a clockwise or counterclockwise direction,
The exemplary embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail. For those of ordinary skill in the art, the advantages and effectiveness of the present invention can be easily realized through the contents disclosed in the present specification. In addition, the present invention can be embodied and practiced by the other different embodiments, and it is understood that many other possible modifications and variations can be made without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention. The following embodiments are described in order to enable those of ordinary skill in the art to embody and practice the present invention.
The blood component detection unit of example 1 of the present invention is shown in
The needle array 102 described above comprises a plurality of needles 1021. In addition, the capsule body 101 surrounds the detection chamber 103 and the sensing chip 104. Further, each needle 1021 protrudes from a first surface 1011 of the capsule body 101. As shown in
As shown in
The blood component detection unit 100 of example 1 of the present invention is disposable. Moreover, the needles 1021 of the blood component detection unit 100 are made of biocompatible materials, and the other parts of the blood component detection unit 100 is made of biodegradable materials. In addition to this, the above-described needles 1021 are manufactured by an imprinting process; wherein the mold used in the above-described imprinting process is manufactured by LIGA process in order to maintain the high accuracy of the size and the direction of each of the needles 1021 in the needle array 102. In addition, in order to improve the efficiency of collecting blood samples, the pinpoint of each of the needles 1021 has a special cone and ditch.
When the blood component detection unit 100 of the example 1 of the present invention is used to detect the existent and/or the concentration of the desired ingredients (for example, the specific chemical ingredients or the blood glucose concentration of the detected blood sample), the needle array 102 will be driven. The method to drive the needle array described above is not limited. It can be mechanically driven, electromagnetically driven, or manually driven methods. Further, the pinpoints of the needles 1021 are pushed to penetrate through a patient's skin. Each of the needles 1021 is coated with anesthetic, so that when the needles penetrate through the patient's skin, the patient will not feel pain.
Since the peripheral part of the needle array 102 is pressed into patient's skin earlier than the rest part of the needle array 102 does, the needles 1021of the peripheral part of the needle array 102 penetrate deeper than the needles 1021 of the rest part of the needle array does and begin to collect the blood sample. Hereafter, the needles 1021 of the blood component detection unit 100 are detached from the patient immediately when the needles 1021 penetrate into patient's skin. At the same time, the space inside the detection chamber 103 forms a negative pressure, and further enables the blood component detection unit 100 to draw blood sample from the patient. The blood sample then passes through the opening 1022 of the needles 1021 and flows into the main body of the needles, and then is introduced into the detection chamber 103.
When the blood sample is introduced into the detection chamber 103, the blood sample flows into the inductor 105 and the sensing chip 104, the blood component detection unit 100 then executes the examination. Hereafter, the result of the examination from the sensing chip 104 is exported to a remote server to proceed signal processing and analysis. Wherein the result of the examination is the concentration of the blood glucose or the other specific chemical component of the blood sample described above. In addition, the remote server may be, for example, a microprocessor of a blood glucose meter.
The blood component detection device of example 2 of the present invention is shown in FIG 2. FIG 2 is a schematic diagram showing the blood component detection device of example 2 of the present invention, the implementation of the blood component detection device of example 2 of the present invention is similar to the implementation of the blood component detection unit 100 of example 1 of the present invention. The difference is that the blood component detection device of example 2 of the present invention further comprises a strip 21 having an upper surface 211.
In addition, as shown in
The blood component sampling equipment of example 3 of the present invention is shown in
The housing described above comprises an opening 311, and the blood component detection device 200 is disposed in the housing. Furthermore, the elastic element 32 is also disposed in the housing 31. As shown in
As shown in
Then, the elastic element 32 pushes the blood component detection unit 100 located at the opening 311 to penetrate the needles of the blood component detection unit 100 into the patient's skin and draw the blood sample. After the blood sample is collected, the elastic element 32 returns to the original location, and rotates the roller element 33. By the rotation of the roller element 33, the strip is driven to remove the used blood component detection unit 100 from the opening 311 and bring the unused blood component detection unit 100 to the opening 311 in order to proceed to the next examination.
Therefore, the used blood component detection unit 100 will he stored inside the housing, until all the blood component detection units 100 inside the blood component sampling equipment of example 3 of the present invention are used. The used blood component sampling equipment is then discarded. According to the good storage system described above, the biological wastes problem caused by improper disposal of the blood component detection units 100 will be improved.
The blood component sampling equipment of example 4 of the present invention is shown in
There is a central hole 4031 in the turntable component 403, and the central hole 4031 of the turntable component 403 matches the corresponding center of the housing 401. The turntable component rotates around the central hole as the axis. In addition, a plurality of openings 4032 is arranged on the turntable component 403. For the blood component sampling equipment of example 4 of the present invention, the number of the openings 4032 is 8. Furthermore, each opening 4032 has a window 4033.
In addition, each of the blood component detection assemblies 405 is arranged to correspond to an opening 4032 of the turntable component 403. The blood component detection assembly 405 has a needle section 4051, and a supporting section 4052.
Please refer to
After the blood sample is collected, the turntable component 403 rotates to the position under the lid 402 of one of the plurality of opening 4032. Hereafter, the depth-controlling component is set to a predetermined position to control the moving depth of the blood component assembly 405.
Next, the related mechanism to move the blood component detection assembly 405 upward by the driving unit 406 will be described in detail. Please refer to
As shown in
At first, as shown in
Please refer to
As shown in
When all the needle part 4051 of the blood component detection assembly 405 is used, the turntable component 403 can he removed from the housing 401, and be replaced by a unused turntable component 403.
The implementation of the blood component sampling equipment of example 5 of the present invention is similar to the implementation of the blood component sampling equipment of example 4 of the present invention, therefore, the following description, which is the focus on the different implementation between example 4 and example 5, the same implementation will not be reiterated.
Please refer to
The different implementation between the blood component sampling equipment of example 5 and the blood component sampling equipment of example 4 of the present invention is that the driving unit of the blood component sampling of example 4 is mechanical and the driving unit of the blood component sampling equipment of example 5 is electromagnetic.
Please refer to
After the collection of the blood sample is finished, the current introduced into the coil 502 is shut down, and the moveable part 5062 is reverted back to its original position, as shown in
The blood component sampling equipment of example 6 of the present invention is shown in
The housing 61 has an opening 611 on its wall, the dimension of which is defined by the size of a blood component detection unit 100 loaded on a blood component detection device 200 that is disposed inside the housing 61, and the blood component detection unit 100 is loaded on a roll of tape. In the present embodiment, a plurality of blood component detection units is set up to be arranged in a front-facing-back manner such that the needles 1021 of each detection unit 100 are arranged to face the back of another detection unit 100. As shown in
The way that the blood component detection unit 100 gets delivered to the injection nozzle 64 is not particularly limited. In the current embodiment of the present invention, the blood component detection unit 100 is carried along the roll of tape in a linear fashion. In addition, in a preferable embodiment of the present invention, the blood component detection unit 100 can be carried along the roll of tape in a linear fashion or in a curvilinear fashion.
To begin using the sampling device of the present invention, the user would press his/her finger 66 (preferably the middle finger) into the lid of the sampling device. Then after a tag of the blood sampling device is pushed, the auto loader is triggered to load up an unused blood component detection unit 100 to the lid. Then, when the user is ready, the tag is pushed again to open a safety switch, letting the elastic element 62 move rapidly toward the unused blood component detection unit 100, to press the unused blood component unit 100 against the user's skin.
As previously disclosed in Embodiment 1, when the unused blood component detection unit comes into close contact with the skin of the user, (which in this example is the skin of the middle finger), the tip of the needles of the array needle of the blood component detection unit would penetrate the skin. At this time, since the surface of the needles of the array needle is coated with anesthetic substance, the user would not feel any stinging sensation during the penetration of the tip of the needles.
Next, the periphery of the array needle is pressed before other region of the array needle when the array needle being driven to press against the skin, the tip of the needles located on the periphery of the array needle penetrates the user's skin deeper than the tip of the needles located on other region of the array needle does (such effect is made available by the specially designed pattern on the pushing surface of the elastic element 62). Then the pressure in the detection chamber is released as the bottom side of the detection chamber is pulled in a direction away from the skin (affected by the restoring movement of the elastic element 62 falling back to its original position). As a result, a negative pressure region is formed inside the detection chamber, drawing the blood sample through the opening 611 and the body of the needles of the array needle to be stored in the detection chamber.
After the blood sample is collected in the detection chamber, the blood sample would be exposed to the detection chip and measurement would take place. After the measurement is done, the detection chip outputs the detection results (in the form of signal), such as the concentration of the glucose in the blood sample or the existence of certain kinds of chemical compound, to a remote server, such as a microprocessor of a glucose meter, for signal processing in a later stage.
Following the receipt of the detection signal by the remote server, the tag of the blood sampling device is pushed again, for disposing the then-used blood component detection unit and restoring the elastic component to its original position. Because the blood component detection unit is made from a biodegradable material, the disposal of the then-used blood component detection unit would not be hazardous to the environment.
The above-mentioned embodiments are for the illustration only, the claims claimed in the present invention, which are not limited to the above embodiments.
This application claims priority from U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/451,683, filed Apr. 20, 2012, which claims priority from U.S. provisional patent application No. 61/478,148, filed Apr. 22, 2011.
Number | Date | Country | |
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61478148 | Apr 2011 | US |
Number | Date | Country | |
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Parent | 13451683 | Apr 2012 | US |
Child | 13660066 | US |